


Hamartia

by rivvy



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: AU, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, American Dream Boy Alfred, Angst, Falling In Love, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Romance, Submissive Character, The Secret History meets Lolita meets suburban america, Tragety, Tragic Romance, alfted is obsessed with his rep, arthur is his typical sour n sweet self, goes crazy wh0Ops, sorta lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-17 16:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14193354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivvy/pseuds/rivvy
Summary: ha·mar·ti·aˌhämärˈtēə/Submitnouna fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine.-Often hamartia grows itself from goodness—a hero so heroic they died for their cause. Alfred’s hamartia derives itself from two completely conflicting values: selfishness and love. This is the story in which the mundane, yet intensely likeable, Alfred falls for the much older, witty, beautiful, antique  shop owner Arthur. It is on a hot, sweaty, passionate summer night that they begin their affair. It is on that same type of night two months later that a depraved, lurid, desperate Alfred ends it. This is love. This is hamartia.





	1. Prolouge

**Author's Note:**

> this story is being told from Alfred’s perspective many years later, when everyone has long forgotten the story’s events. the rating mAy go up oop. Also this sucks ass but I tried lmao THIS IS UNBETAD

Prolouge:

Nowadays, people have tried to hard to stray from typical teenage archetypes that they make new ones. Before the pretty, dumb girl fell for the pretty, dumb boy. They had simple conversations. They were ordinary. Now teenagers in stories are these hyper-philosophical beings, where everything is tragic and spectacular, a whirlwind romance of the typical, bullied boy falling for this extraordinary, gorgeous, different girl, a girl “not like the other girls”. Together they live life on the edge in an unrealistic world where everything is picturesque, yet somehow edgy and non-conformist. They live for the spectacular now and they try so hard to break the archetype. The bad party boy falling for the unremarkable, simple girl who turns out to be funny. The remarkably niche, legless, hot guy falling for the ugly, overweight, darkly “funny” cancer patient. The shy, gay boy who always gets bullied falling for the unreachable hot guy from the other school. The boring, average looking boy falling for the adventurous, wild, aesthetically-pleasing mystery girl who takes him on a wild quest. These “different”, “darkly humourous”, “witty”, “soul-touching”, John Green esque stories that have so vigorously been pumped into us, trying to be different, eventually all become the same. These stories are just broken records. These are the stories of the impossible dream. This is not that story.

I am telling this story for myself and only myself, from the safety of my home. I tell this story because it is the only story that will ever mean anything. I tell it because when I die, my kids, my wife, someone will find these pages, and the they will know—they will know that they mean nothing to me. That, once, I had a life full of something meaningful. I tell this story out of selfishness, disgust, and love. This is my only story, and I tell it because no one will ever catch me for what I did. I was in love, and I cannot be convicted for what I’ve done.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More backstory oop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STILL UNBETAD¡ I’m writing this story in the notes section of my iPhone SE so keep in mind there will be a few typos. HapPy Reading

Before Arthur, I never read books. To me, they had merely been many pages of paper—of brutally sliced trees— glued together to a single spine, a single backbone. They would sit, lifelessly, in the toxically dusty shelves of my parents’ home, waiting to be cracked open, waiting to plague the reader with the inevitable dust-induced sneeze. They were merely a symbol to my parents, to me—nothing more than a deadened object.

In books however, I have found my life’s story, the only explanation for what I did to him, for what I did to myself. The concept of The Fatal Flaw, Hamartia, ἁμαρτάνω. A concept of which the origin is so tragic, so Greek, one hardly needs to explain further. The pivotal concept of “missing the mark”, of guilt, of failure, of flaw. 

My flaw, my ἁμαρτάνω, my hamartia, runs so deeply rooted inside me that I could not possibly explain it without sounding like an idiot, or a monster, or both. It seeps from the very cracks of my soul and plants itself into my brain like a disease, and it is so many-sided that one could not possibly give it one word, at least, not a word that exists in English. Although I may sound vague, there is no way to explain the concept of my flaw without the terror and ambiguity that comes with vagueness. In layman’s terms, my flaw derives itself from these things: love and ideals, my passion for him mixed with the morals I was raised with. But beyond that, my hamartia is this: I was so incapacitated by my compulsive need to maintain my reputation, that I was blind to my love, blind to Arthur; therefore I was blind to my human consciousness, and my very humanity itself soon evaporated from me. 

My name is Alfred Jones, and I am 45 years old, soon to be 46 on this upcoming 4th of July. I was born in 1972, in the blistering heat of our nations proudest day, in the heart of the American Dream, of suburbia, in the small yet threatening town of Middle Hannon, West Virginia. There the mountains stood unbelievably tall, covered in lush greenery, isolating our little valley town from the outside world. There the grass grew so green it was almost unreal, so almost-unreal that the face of our town was slapped onto almost every West Virginia postcard, because we were the face of West Virginia—we were smack-dab between the states greenest mountains, and there lied our picturesque town, small and sunny and quaint. “Country road, take me home, to the place I belong. West Virginia, mountain mama, take me home, country road” and all that. However, despite being the face of West Virginia, no one knew that face had a name, and the town of Middle Hannon, although beautiful, seethed. The people there were as idyllic as the postcards, but inside them was a viciousness I was never conscious of until I met Arthur. 

My childhood has become a blur to me, a few images pop up here and there when I think about my early Middle Hannon days, but nothing of substance—freshly clipped grass; a never-ending supply of Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast; post-football game pizza rolls, and of course, church every Sunday at 9:45 on the dot. 

Everything else from those years is but a smudge in my mind, sort of a time lapse that I am incapable of slowing down. I may only remember a few of the details but I need not remember more, for all of my childhood was stained with a general feeling of ignorant bliss and mundane problems that occurred in my daily life. My life was trivial and simple, to which my biggest problems were turning in my homework on time, running out of orange juice, and getting a girlfriend. However, the cracks in my life I can easily spot now—my father inevitably cheating on my mother, my mother digging a grave of debt for my father, my own homophobia, just like everyone else’s, bubbling under the surface—I was blind and deaf to before. I was so caught up in my own world, so convinced I was happy, in the loosest sense, that I was ignorant to everything around me, including myself. And somewhere inside all of this, I felt somewhat as though my very livelihood was pointless, or to put less dramatically—my life was boring and repetitive and I craved something of interest. I guess it isn’t all too odd or surprising that I have trouble recounting these meaningless strings of events after meeting Arthur. I had nothing in common with him, and maybe that’s what drew me to him—which, after all those years of unconscious homophobia, and even now, 29 years later, I still have trouble talking about our inevitable attraction. He was so different, that back then I couldn’t put my finger on it, but now I can see that everything about him, from looks to personality, satisfied my selfish hunger for anything novel. Probably the most attractive thing about him was his unconventional-ness, how, unlike my fellow townspeople, he didn’t look like he fell out of an aesthetically-pleasing Coca-Cola ad. He was shorter than my own mother, five foot three and change, and his skin was pale and glassy, dotted with freckles and a deep pink ruddiness. His eyes were large and —almost threateningly—forest green, dark circles smudged under his eyes like paint, his eyelashes long and pale, longer than I’d ever seen on anyone—but then again, I’m pretty sure he curled them. His nose was thin and sort of beakish, I suppose, and he had a heavy upper lip, kissable and always red with blood, as he was always biting them. His eyebrows were the largest I’ve ever seen, bushy and dark, always making him look angry, and if anyone else were to have them, I’d be turned off immediately, but on Arthur they were perfect. His feminine body would get me every time, but hell, he was hotter than any girl I’d ever been with. He was terribly bony, all thin knuckles and protruding hipbones, but he was built better than Aphrodite herself— I’m getting sidetracked. Arthur was a person unlike anything I had seen before, and since then I have never seen anyone as remarkable. He was different and new and strange in a way that he was attractive to only me. And it’s because of me that he can never be attractive to anyone else. I am the last person on this earth, in this era, who will ever remember him as he was, back then, in the sweltering summer of 1989. 

How to begin.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfred sees Arthur for the first time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UNBETAD SORRY IF THERE ARE MANY A MISTAKE. Please rate and review, I’d love feedback!! ThAnkS gUyS

The sun scorched my golden hair from its stupid throne in the sky, and I was nearing dangerously close to the holy phenomena of self-combustion. The shoulder pads of my football gear stuck to my grimy, tan skin, a gross yet glorious feeling. I basked in the sizzling red heat, football in hand, hair metal playing; sweating, dingy, dirty. That annoying, blinding sphere in the sky graced my vision with its hot-white glare as I passed the ball back to Tony, in all of his grimacing glory. The ball spiraled right over his shoulder.

Tony huffed noisily. “What the hell dude? This is the third time you’ve passed like a goddamn fairy”, said he, disgruntled, rummaging around for that brown, worn, Nike little beauty.  
I snorted, closing one eye and squinting into that raging afternoon sun. “Yeah just because I visit your mom every night doesn’t mean you get to trash my perfectly good passes like that.”   
Tony barked out a laugh, which slowly devolved into asphyxiation, his nasally voice reaching levels of insurmountable nasal-ness. “Go die All”, he wheezed, finally ending what sounded like a painfully hilarious asthma-attack. I smirked and clapped him on his his burning, plastic covered shoulders.

“Only if your sweet, sweet mama'll join me”.  
Tony only rolled his eyes as he made his way to the bleachers and picked up his towel, savagely attacking his face with it. Looking up, he checked his watch, “Oh shit oh shit oh shit”. He turned around and threw the towel over his shoulder, shouting “See ya Al” as he booked it down the street.  
 _Stupid Tony_ , I thought to myself. I grabbed my own towel, swiping it over my face before stuffing it in my backpack. The sun began to dip low in the sky, its deep orange and pinks ghosting the sidewalk with an ethereal golden glow; elongating my shadow into a thin, grotesque thing. As I continued my trek home, I spotted the old, haunted Vonteller house with a sign hanging from its porch. _Weird_.

I ran up to the house and stopped just short of the driveway-turned parking lot, crunching it’s unfamiliar gravel under my battered Nikes. The house was one of those old colonials, aged and beat up, but now it looked good as new. The antiquated glass of the windows still rippled with many years, but the white house was covered in a new red trim. All this was accompanied by a sign reading “Kirkland Antiques”. 

I frowned. _Who the hell even needs these antique shops run by those crusty old grandmas anymore?_ Little did I know the person inside was somehow simultaneously very different and very similar to the dreaded, old, collector-type grandma.   
Despite the fact “Kirkland Antiques” looked a bit more like a hospice than a store, it’s sagging porch and dark windows peaked my curiosity. I climbed up the porch’s steps, each one looking more dangerous than the next. Opening the door, I was hit with a startlingly potent wave of dust and bergamot, and boy, what a scent. Yeah, I know, it sounds like one of those stereotypical things you find when you look over the shoulder of your _Twilight_ reading niece. “He smelled like a musty enigma, all sandalwood and potpourri” and all that shit. But this smell is one I will remember forever. And, as you’re reading this, I bet you’re thinking something along the lines of: _Well what the hell does that even smell like_? Considering this smell was the beginning of an era for me, you’d think I’d be able to describe the scent a little more eloquently than “a sexy version of your grandma”. But really, that’s what it was.

Despite that nostalgic, overpowering, concentrated smell hitting me like a brick wall, I was unable to withhold my astonishment in seeing the store. Although the outside looked like something right out of “Top 10 Homey Retirement Homes”, the inside was quite the picture. Trinkets of all sorts lined the walls, from trash to treasure —Mickey D toys to gold earrings— everything was surrounded by a glossy, auburn mahogany. The air was cool and light, yet the store was filled with tiny tea light candles, giving the place an odd warmth. The floor was covered in a large, plush, red Persian rug, the kind that absorbed your foot when you walked on it, the mahogany planks peeking out from underneath. The setting sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating the travelling dust with its golden rays. It was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the person I saw standing there.

I turned, looking to my right, and hunched over that rich, wood desk, stood my life handed to me. At first I thought it was a girl, but no girl could ever be that pretty. All of them with their bloated faces, clumpy mascara, thin-haired, coarse skin, metal-mouthed and shoulder-padded. No, this was nothing like that. He was short but leggy, donning a loose, silk button-up tucked into high-waisted, green corduroy slacks. His palms were small but his fingers were long and thin, pale, fragile. He looked up at me from his long, dainty neck, and I saw the love of my life. _Oh god._

His thin face and high cheekbones were dusted with freckles, and his skin was glassy and white. He had a sharp, thin, hooked nose and pink lips, his upper lip plump and rounded. And his eyes were the most striking green—forest—framed by those long, light, matted eyelashes. His eyebrows were aggressive and dark and thick, just touching his tousled, honey-blonde bangs. He frowned.

“Take a picture, you sod, it’ll last longer.” He was English. Fiery. I smirked, and then suddenly it faded. _What are you, a queer?_

I was enamoured, and I hated it.


End file.
